Ober S. Herr Jr., banker

Ober S. Herr Jr., a retired Carroll County banker and community activist, died Thursday of renal failure at his Westminster home. He was 87.

Ober Samuel Herr Jr. was born and raised in Westminster, where he grew up in a home on Ridge Road.

He was a grandson of William Roberts McDaniel, who had spent 65 years at Western Maryland College as a student, professor, administrator and trustee. In 2002, college trustees changed the name to McDaniel College in his honor.

Mr. Ober was a 1944 graduate of Westminster High School and interrupted his college education at Western Maryland College to enlist in 1945 in the Navy, where he served as an aviation machinist's mate.

After the war ended, he returned to Western Maryland College, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1949 in economics. He was a 1967 graduate of the Maryland-Virginia School of Bank Management.

He worked briefly as office manager for the Times Printing Co., and then as an auto salesman for Jameson and Barnsley Automobile Co.

Mr. Herr began his banking career in 1964 at Carroll County Bank and Trust Co., which is now BB&T Bank. He later was promoted to vice president and comptroller, and retired in 1992.

Active in Westminster affairs, Mr. Herr had been chair of the City of Westminster's Planning and Zoning Board. He had been treasurer and a member of the board of the Historical Society of Carroll County and had served on the board of the Carroll County Heart Association.

Mr. Herr was the longest-serving member of the Westminster Rotary Club, having joined in 1951. He had served as the organization's president from 1960 to 1961, its treasurer, and editor of The Pinion and the club directory. He was a member of its awards committee and had been treasurer of the Sherman Flanagan Scholarship Fund.

For his long service to Rotary, he was named a Paul Harris Fellow in 1986.

Mr. Herr was a member of Westminster United Methodist Church and had served on the church's finance committee and its board, and was treasurer of the Benevolence Fund.

He was an avid model railroader and had constructed an elaborate O-Gauge layout.

Funeral services will be held at 2 p.m. Monday at the Myers-Durboraw Funeral Home, 91 Willis St., Westminster.

Mr. Herr is survived by his wife of 64 years, the former Jeanne Blettner; two sons, Stephen K. Herr of Bend, Ore., and James D. Herr of El Dorado Hills, Calif.; a daughter, Karen J. Herr Mallonee of Owensboro, Ky.; and seven grandchildren.